All about writing tools and the cups we keep them in

To Remember it Now

My vocation is a minister. I pastor a small country church and am chaplain at a retirement / assisted living community. As such, I have many things coming at me during the course of the day that I need to remember. I quickly learned I needed to have a way to write it all down or I would be bound to forget to do something. It’s not fitting for a minister to say, “Oh, I forgot to pray for your cancer surgery.” I needed to remember not only what I did but what I needed to do.

I knew early on, especially working with seniors, that pulling out my phone would be frowned upon so my current means of taking notes electronically wouldn’t work. However, I figured a pen and a piece of paper would be less intimidating. So, I got a bunch of index cards and started to carry a few of those like I used to – you know, like the Hipster PDA. But, I quickly found these clumsy and hard to carry from day to day.

I had a couple of Field Notes notebooks lying around left over after I purchased a few three packs to give as gifts to a pen friend in South Korea when I went on our first adoption trip. Around this same time I discovered the Bullet Journal as well as the Dash/Plus system as a means to keep track of all this stuff. Initially, I tried to do the bullet journal in a standard size Moleskine notebook like what I often use to journal in (alas – that’s another blog post). It was clunky to carry the notebook around with me along with my Bible when I went on a visit or to a meeting. I wanted something more portable that I could slide in my pocket and keep it with me all the time.

Then, inspiration hit me – 48 divided by 4 = 12. 2 pages per day and 1 per day on the weekend means that a week would be 12 pages! Wowza! These Field Notes would be perfect! I did a two week test run and loved the results. I quickly dove into the next Kraft notebook and then ordered a Cherry Wood pack. I also dove head first into the whole Field Nuts group over on Facebook (although I can’t believe how much some people pay for certain editions – it’s a notebook for crying out loud!)

It was also around this time that Field Notes announced they had something really special up their sleeve for their Winter Colors edition. I quickly learned that four times a year, Field Notes releases a limited edition with a special theme. So, I went ahead and did a subscription, something my wife thought was … well, she thought it was odd (“You subscribed to a notebook?!”).

They were right and the Ambition edition is pretty special (my crummy camera work notwithstanding). I love showing everyone my golden notebook. But moreover, I love the ability to keep my life a little bit more organized than it might be otherwise. “I’m not writing it down to remember later,” as the motto goes, “I’m writing it down to remember now.”

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